The invention relates to railroad cars, especially the trucks or bogies which are located at opposing ends of a railroad car to support the car on the rails of a trackway. More particularly, the invention relates to a passive steering radial truck which is manufactured and sold by National Castings Incorporated of Lisle, Ill. under the trademark AXLE MOTION II. A detailed description of this quality truck with excellent performance characteristics is found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,517,620. The AXLE MOTION II truck is fabricated from many different steel parts and essentially comprises a pair of sideframes which are held in parallel relation by a bolster which is rigidly secured transversely between the two sideframes. Each of the sideframes has a pair of pedestal frames in side-by-side, aligned, spaced relation. Each of the pedestal frames essentially comprises an inverted, generally U-shaped rigid frame which supports an axle box in which one end of an axle with an attached pair of wheels is mounted for rotation.
The AXLE MOTION II truck was designed at a time when railroad cars were smaller than presently built cars which are much larger and capable of carrying heavier loads. The invention is directed to substantially increasing the strength of the pedestal frames of this particular truck without adversely effecting the excellent performance characteristics of the truck, or radically increasing the weight of the truck.
Briefly stated, the invention is in the addition of special reinforcement ribs to an existing pedestal frame. It has been found that such addition not only increase the strength of the pedestal frames, but facilitate the fabrication of the sideframe which is very important, since most of the trucks built today are fabricated from a number of steel components and not integrally cast, as in years gone by, because such castings are enormous and difficult to cast, and expensive to produce.